Helaine Blumenfeld
Helaine Blumenfeld is an internationally acclaimed sculptor, whose career spans over 50 years. Born in New York, Blumenfeld studied at Columbia University, New York, and then at Oxford University, UK, where she completed a PhD in Philosophy in 1964. Following her studies, Blumenfeld moved to Paris to sculpt and became a pupil of Ossip Zadkine.... read more
Helaine Blumenfeld is an internationally acclaimed sculptor, whose career spans over 50 years. Born in New York, Blumenfeld studied at Columbia University, New York, and then at Oxford University, UK, where she completed a PhD in Philosophy in 1964. Following her studies, Blumenfeld moved to Paris to sculpt and became a pupil of Ossip Zadkine.
In 1973, Blumenfeld moved to England and the same year exhibited at Kettles Yard, Cambridge. 1978 marked a turning point in Blumenfeld’s work when she first visited Pietrasanta, Italy and started carving marble. In 1985 Blumenfeld had a joint exhibition with Henry Moore at the Alex Rosenburg Gallery, New York entitled Moore: Blumenfeld – a Dialogue.
In 2007 Blumenfeld won the Il Premio Pietrasanta e la Versilia Nel Mondo, adding her name to the list of winners of this honour including Botero, Pomodoro and Marc Quinn. Blumenfeld was the first woman to receive this prestigious award.
In 2008 the Royal British Society of Sculptors held a major retrospective of her work, and in 2011 the sculptor was awarded an honorary OBE.
Blumenfeld’s public commissions include the three-meter high monumental marble Tempesta at The Lancasters, overlooking Hyde Park, London which was installed in 2012.
Helaine Blumenfeld’s sculptural vocabulary lies between abstraction and figuration. Her luminous works play with duality, introducing a remarkable lightness to carved stone. Testing the limits of her material, Blumenfeld creates impossibly thin, undulating structures through a profound understanding of the boundaries of her materials. Recent pieces have seen her expand her practice to experiment with Silver Nitrate patinas- a nod to her father- in- law, the acclaimed photographer Erwin Blumenfeld.
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